The Hope City Board met Tuesday August 1st for their first meeting of the month. The meeting opened with Hope Police Chief J.R. Wilson along with Gary Sipes, Executive Director of the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police. He presented Chief Wilson with its certificate of accreditation through the Arkansas Law Enforcement Accreditation Program. The accreditation ensures the police department operates in a professional manner. The Department is subject to outside peer review every three yearHope Water and Light General Manager Steve Saum gave the City Board a presentation on the system enhancements Hope Water and Light. Charlotte Bradley of Water and Light spoke on the billing changes and on the options for managing your account. Saum spoke on the "advanced metering infrastructure".The City Board looked at financial statements for the first six months of the year. City expenditures were $2,364,100.11 or 50.8% of the 2017 budget. The sales tax fund only represented 5 months of receipts. The receipts for five months were $1.5 million dollars. The board looked at purchasing a new copy machine. Vanco told the city that Toshiba will not support the old city copier. The city copier is 9 years old. Vanco has priced one for the city, a color copier for $6,000. The board indicated they wanted a couple of more bids before before making a decision.City Manager Catherine Cook asked if there was any interest on working on the city planter at 3rd and Walnut. One board member suggested since it was late in the year just wait and put it in next year's budget. Discussion ensued. Dr. Trevor Coffee said he'd had calls about letting someone local bid on it. The board tabled the matter until September to see if any local firms or individuals come forward about the bid. The board adjourned into executive session at 8:15. The board reconvened at 8:42. No action was taken. Mayor Montgomery said it had to do with performance review of the City Manager.The board voted to enter into an engineering contract for the rail spur renovation. The contract will be in place should a grant application be approved to help fund that work.Under the City Manager's report, Catherine Cook noted the recent city-wide clean-up resulted in 526 cubic yards of waste being picked up. Cook read a letter from Dr. Roscoe Smith who thanked the board for putting the historical marker at the North SIde Park commemorating the historic swimming pool. Charles Primus asked permission to have a fundraiser at the North SIde Park, a car show, to raise funds for the park fund for feeding kids in the North SIde Park programs. Blake Montgomery suggested the group have a church handle the money. Primus said they hadn't had much success with churches. The board voted to allow the fundraiser and to let the group deposit the money in the city account. The board then adjourned.